


The Bastard Knight

by Phaserburn



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Banter, Beforus, Brooding Caverns, F/M, M/M, Minor Kismesissitude, Moirallegiance, Royalty
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-07
Updated: 2015-03-08
Packaged: 2018-02-28 11:39:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2731088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phaserburn/pseuds/Phaserburn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Beforus, a strange birth gives Kankri's ancestor, Karkat, a complicated position in the Royal Court as the right hand man of the Empress incumbent.  But when an untimely insult drives him to question his origins, he'll travel across the lands in search of answers, running into destined friends and enemies along the way.  But what he learns may be way more than he bargained for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

For many weeks there had been a thronging collective outside of the main brooding chamber, as the Jade blooded nurses of those caverns crowded around the entrance like bees in a water dish, trying to catch a glimpse of the swollen, translucent belly of the Mother Grub, and the many colored blurs of egg that swirled about within it promisingly.  

“Have you seen it?”

“Of course,” they would lie, “haven’t you?”

Many claimed to have seen the murky pink peek out from beneath it’s wombkin, before being swept away from the entrance by the scolding Highdame, matron and teacher of the grub keepers.  Scattering to their stations, they whispered about the fuchsia swirl of royalty that had sat at the corner, or peeked out from deep within, or boldly lay at the front, guiding it’s wombkin through the world even before birth.  

It was the distressed calls of a Mothergrub crowded and pushed by gossiping Jade Bloods looking for a peek of the royal grub that prompted the Highdame Grubkeep Kanaya Maryam to order that that particular Mothergrub’s cave be sanctioned off, and only the most experienced allowed to tend to her.

This was the first heiress to be born in a Milenia, and the excitement was thick and heavy with responsibility.  If the Mother Grub was overstressed, they risked a miscarriage and the loss of her precious cargo, not to mention the rest of its Wombkin.  

No.  It was decided that a sanction was the safest course of action.  And to enforce it, Kanaya ordered the majority of the nurses work at constructing a temporary office across from the cave’s entrance out of baked mud bricks, stone, and handmade mortar for Kanaya to reside within.  The room could barely hold a bed and desk, it’s one window left the room warm in the day, and it’s cloth door left it chilly at night, but she carried on her business within there for months.  And every time she looked out and saw a troll strolling towards the entrance, inching their way further and further to stretch the sanctions until they caught her stern glare from the window, she knew that she was accomplishing something with her presence.

After the initial excitement, however, most of the nurses’ curiosities were held at bay by their work.  The coming of an Empress demanded a royal caregiver, and so came the task of traveling to the castle and compelling the current Queens Lusci, a pearl white Walrus with a fuchsia blush, to birth a successor.  Upon returning, the zookeepers took to raising and nursing and training and caring and fattening that guardian, a task of many steps that took many perigree’s.  

Meanwhile, although the Empress’s particular Mothergrub was taken out of their hands and nowhere near going into labor, there were still many more Mothergrubs to look after and other birthings to facilitate and broods of grubs to nurse and match to their lusci.  All tasks that fell more heavily upon the shoulders of the younger nurses compelled away.

Kanaya could remember easily the days in which she was one of those apprentices, training under many different Highdames, both kind and stern, until the sweeps and her skills collected and she rose through the ranks to become a leader herself.  But the birth of a Fushian was so rare that she had never seen it firsthand.  The current Empress was well into her reign when Kanaya’s own wriggling day came, and the last one to be seen had been conceived in the Eastern brooding caves of the mountains.  The eggs laid were fragile, and cracked before reaching the ground or at the touch of wind.  The child was a stillborn, the result of stress imposed upon its Mothergrub.

Anxious to avoid the same result, she stood back, preparing herself with books and reciting her studies back softly into the caked mud bricks of her office building.  Within the next few months, the swirl grew and defined itself within the distended belly of the Mothergrub until finally a hurried nurse arrived wide-eyed at Kanaya’s door to announce that the eggs were being laid.  Sure enough, when she arrived, they could see that dozens of eggs were already set about in a disorganized line, while a team carefully inspected them.  

Their shells were stable and thick, and Kanaya breathed a sigh of relief.

Finally, on the 12th Perigree since the announcement of that blessed swirl of Fushia, an insomniatic Kanaya was startled from her bed by a screaming mass of excitement outside the caves.  A Jade blood had seen the telltale signs of a hatching grub, and summoned the rest to the cave’s entrance, all eager and yet unwilling to enter for fear of being the one responsible for any misfortune that could still befall breaking the sanction.  They all pressed up against the walls without prompting, parting for the Highdame’s experience as she entered.

The hatching began minutes after the she sat down.  In the corner a grub hatched from its shell, a mere speck in the brood that surrounded her.  The mark of it’s back told her it’s blood color; a murky Bronze slick with amniotic fluid.  Swiftly, Kanaya swathed the infant in one of the colored towels nearby and with a sharp command, ordered the nearest Jade blood to take it to the bronze cavern to rest among the stalagmites with its future Lusci.  Begrudged, her apprentice agreed, and the crowd once again parted, albeit less so and in a looser configuration, to let her carry the young grub to it’s temporary home.  

Immediately there was another.  This one was Cerulean backed, and swathed within a cotton cloth nearby that had been provided by the cerulean emissaries.  It had been donated alongside the wool given to the previous Bronze blooded grub by the Cerulean offices with the stipulation that the cotton be used on cerulean grubs and cerulean grubs alone; the delicate politics Kanaya kept balanced in her mind.

Again, an apprentice was handed the bundle and beckoned off to the Cerulean caves to let the grub loose amongst the stalactites and spider webs.

More hatched, and more, and more and more slowing as time passed.  A Violet blood, normally a cause for celebration but out shone by the yet arrived heiress, was wrapped in an elaborately stitched and woven blanket, silky and yet warm to the touch regardless.   A burgundy set in towel was born with the beginnings of horns already peeking from its head.  It was uncommon for regular trollkind for horns to arrive before they merge from their cocoons, but a deformity common amongst the lowest bloods.  The official diagnosis from the medical officials was that those of shorter lifespans were developed quicker, often in painful and inconvenient ways.  A tragic and yet sensible explanation.

Finally, as the number of new grubs grew higher and higher, the births came slower and slower until there were only two eggs remaining, one containing the royal grub.  Finally a crack appeared in the nearest egg, and then a flicker of the body came from beneath a discarded piece of shell, the wine colored fuchsia of the royal appeared.

The majority of the crowd had been sent away, save the select few Kanaya had strategically ignored and allowed to stay; the brightest ones who she had faith would one day be promoted to her position.  The select few that deserved to be educated by this event, which ironically would most likely not be repeated in any of their lifetimes; the truest tragedy of their education.

The young grub was swathed gently in an ancient artifact blanket delivered by a palace messenger a few months after they sent news of the heiress’s conception.  Although older than anything the Highdame had seen, except perhaps the mud of the very caverns, the blanket was still of the highest softness and quality, and court caretakers had taken the time to perfume it with various oils and flowers, so that even the Highdame felt drowsy to handle it.

“Olgata,” Kanaya barked, bringing a remaining Jadeblood by the entrance into attention, “fetch the Empress’s Lusci from their stable.  We shall convert this cavern into its roost.”

“Yes Miss.” And the apprentice troll disappeared from the caves to fetch the royal guardian.

From the corner, the last egg quietly cracked, rousing the exhausted Kanaya.  Another hatching seemed almost uneventful in comparison with the empress’s arrival, and they were all out of blankets for the lowbloods, so she prayed it would be a Jade or higher, or else this one would have to be secretly bundled within the donated fabrics of the high bloods.

Her thoughts were erased as soon as she saw the body protruding from its shell; sweet looking in its atrocious unfamiliarity.  Its color seemed so unclean and ill that she immediate checked to see if the body was starved, but there was no loss of circulation or signs of malnutrition.  The Grub was not still born, but its body and the blood coming from a cut in its side where it had gouged its sensitive body with the jagged edge of its shell was as red as the sunrise against the clouds at late night and as bright.  As blindingly bright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Character Titles:  
> Karkat - ?  
> Aradia - ?  
> Tavros - ?  
> Sollux - ?  
> Nepeta - ?  
> Kanaya - ?  
> Terezi - ?  
> Vriska - ?  
> Equis - ?  
> Gamzee - ?  
> Eridan - ?  
> Feferi - ?


	2. Court Politics

Karkat rushed towards the meeting room with conviction, and yet he was still second to arrive.  Feferi turned to face him from across the table, gently twirling one of her braids in the dark.  Karkat stumbled backwards from shock.

“Hello Karkat,” Feferi bubbled.

“Shit Fef,” Karkat yelled, walking over to a lamp.  He took the long, thin pillar candle from it’s perch and held it to the lantern until the collective glow began to fill that corner of the room.  “What are you doing in the meeting room so early?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” she responded, following him with her eyes as he lit each lantern and screamed towards the walls.

“No.  You can’t.  Because I’m not the one sitting in the fucking dark before meetings are even supposed to be happening, twirling my fucking braids until they look like twisted yarn and you have to come crawling back to me to spend a whole hour ripping at your roots to unknot them again.   Make me the royal hairdresser or some bullshit.”

Feferi rolled her eyes behind his back with humoured familiarity, and then straightened her posture and deadened her eyes with practiced royal diplomacy.  Two could play at this game.   “What do you want Karkat?”

He made a complete circle of the room and set the candle back in its holding place.  “You made a meeting with Eridan today?”

Feferi nodded.  “Yes, I did.”

“Why the hell did you do that?”

She shrugged, maintaining eye contact.  She had let her braid go when the questions began, and now it hung singularly in front of her shoulder, while the rest lay behind.  “He’s one of my highest Advvisors,” she said, mimicking his pronunciation.  It sent spiteful shivers up Karkat’s spine.  “I’m supposed to listen to what he has to say.”

“In a private room?  Alone?”  
“If he asks me to, then yes.  It doesn’t cost me anything to accommodate him,” she said.  They were both aware that the formality was to practice Feferi’s diplomatic skills.  She had been working and honing them for months now, and idling learning for sweeps.  Karkat understood though.  He didn’t mind.

“It’s no less,” she continued, “then I would do for you.”  Which was a lie by omission, and an intentional one.  Because Karkat knew this was the absolute least she would have done for him.  If he had asked, she would have done infinitely more to accommodate him, and the gentle reminder of this while still allowing him the dignity of not pointing out her favors guilted him into lowering his tone.

“I’m only looking out for you,” he said.

“An Empress looks out for herself.”

“An Empress has a hoard of advisors to help her.”

“An Empress is meeting with her advvisor today in fact.”

“An Empress should-  No.  Nevermind.  Fuck it.  Talk to him.  I don’t care.  Even though he’s a vile sandsucking bottom feeder who’s obviously just going to waste a half hour of your time trying to sell you some grubshucking pitch for his own advancement, I don’t care.  But I’m going to stay,” he said, planting himself in a seat for dramatic effect, “Got it?”

Feferi shrugged.  “The Royal Advvisor’s confidence can survive a single audience member.  Besides, I’m sure you plot together plenty as it is.”

Karkat pouted.  “We don’t share our plots stupid.  That would defeat the entire point.”

They both turned as the door opened, revealing a startled and then snarling troll carrying a book of loose leaf jagged slips of paper.  He was wearing violet scholar’s robes, an overdone declaration of his blood color, which were an inch too long for him and swept the floors wherever he went, saving the servants the trouble of tidying up.

“Feferi,” he muttered, “I was under the impression that we were having a private meeting.”

Karkat stood up to confront him, only to face Feferi’s arm.

“Karkat,” she said, “came here a few moments ago to voice some concerns with me and I asked him to stay.  Is it truly so important that he does not join us for this proposal?”

Eridan snarled, looking over Feferi to stare at Karkat.  “Well, I’m glad that our little Karkat has grown so bold.  But I would still prefer a private meeting-“

“Our desires,” Feferi interrupted, “and our needs are not one in the same, are they?”  

Eridan gritted his teeth together, repeatedly locking and dislodging the jagged pieces of canine, while staring at Karkat and willing him to excuse himself.  But nothing changed.  “No.  I suppose they aren’t.  I would have preferred some prior warning, however, my heiress.”

“As I said, Karkat only came here a few moments ago, and regardless, our meeting wasn’t supposed to start for another half-hour, wasn’t it?  There was not time to send you warning.”

Erdian glubbed in his place, like he was casting bubbles in the air before agreeing.

“Well then, since everyone is already here,” Feferi said, “we might as well begin.”

Erdian nodded with a final glare toward his invading rival before setting his book upon the table and beginning.

“As you know, it is traditional for the empress on her crowning day to issue a new piece of law into effect, specifically an improvement upon the old empresses reign and a sign of the many blessings she will bestow upon her people.”

“Tradition,” she interrupted, “is a precocious term to apply to a ritual as rare and sporadic as a crowning day, don’t you think?”

Eridan scoffed.  “Your highness, with all due respect, there is a precedent that has been set by our history-”

“With so few incarnations, Eridan, I disagree.  There have been only three recorded empresses before me, and the first wouldn’t have been able to undo ANY predecessor’s legislation.  Hardly enough to validate a precedent.” Her eyes sharpened to a point, like the teeth she flashed with every word, “I will listen to what you have to say, but I will enact it only if I desire to do so, not in accordance to any history.”

Karkat chuckled once as Eridan stumbled back into his place.  “Yes Heiress.  I am only advising you in what I find best.”  He opened his book, taking out what looked like a smaller piece of paper but what turned out to be a many times larger, folded page.

“As you are aware,” he said, “our government has a system in place to organize welfare amongst its people, with those of the most benefitting those with the least.  The most intelligent guiding the mentally deprived.  Those with the longest lifespans and the longest memories teaching those whose lives flicker from the horizon like sparks from a burning flame.”

He lingered for a moment beside a lantern with practiced theatre, returning to his speech.  “The system began with our first ruler, who put it in place after her unprecedented Millennia of youthful life proved a gift to us all.  Naturally, she placed her own kind at the top so that her decendents, those of the Fushian blood, would be charged with similar responsibilities. Similarly, it has been the charge of those beneath them, the Violet bloods,” he gestured widely upon his own cloak, “to guide those below them.” He made another sweeping gesture, painstakingly angled to include Karkat.

“Further down, those of Purple blood protect and are protected.  And those of Indigo blood protect and are protected onward and onward until we reach the lowest of the low, those most prone to ignorance, disease, and futility, who are catered to and protected by all from their innocence.”

“But there were errors still,” he continued, “things not expected by the original Empress.  Specifically, assuming that entire communities could protect entire communities lacked a personal touch.  And so her descendent invented the system of Culling, in which specific individuals of mental strain were charged to specific individuals volunteering for the job.  And the Empress after her defined the castes, and reformed the categories of blood and who falls into which category of protection.  And so I suggest to you-”

He turned the large paper he had unfolded around to face them.  It was hard to read, because the light from the lantern shone through the thin paper obscuring the text, but he explained it as though nothing was wrong, his eyes darting toward Karkat the entire time.

“As you are aware, there have been some difficulties with some of the more violent and volatile culls, specifically the most mentally unstable and dangerous.  This is due to culls being given to similar blood colors, who are unable to protect them simply because of their proximity in blood color not granting them enough experience and discipline to impose upon their charges.  Just recently, in fact, we can all remember when the Jester’s Cull escaped and drowned itself in the ocean, right?”  Feferi and Karkat both nodded, remembering the boats that were sent out afterwards, and returned empty.  “And so,” he continued, “I suggest a system, utilizing the defined castes of your predecessor.  The first order would be the restriction of culling to those of Jade blood or higher.  The second, would be the restriction of who is allowed to adopt a cull of what blood color, burgundy to all.  Bronze to Teal and above.  Ochre to Cerulean and above.  Lime to Indigo and above.  Olive to the Purple and above,” he took a look at Karkat, “and ambiguous to the Violet and Fushia alone.”

Feferi’s arm could not dart out fast enough to stop Karkat rocketing to his feet.  “WHAT,” he screamed, “Why the fuck am I on that list?”

“Those of your ambiguity,” he said, “are notorious wild cards. You could live for mere dozen perigrees-”

“A BIT LATE FOR THAT, DON’T YOU THINK?” Karkat screamed.

“-dying in grubhood, or multitudes of sweeps.  And so you should only be culled to the most capable-”

“And WHAT?  You think you would be able to handle me?”

“Enough,” Feferi screamed to match Karkat.  The two of them turned to her, still darting their eyes at one another.   “I can see now, Eridan, why you initially invested upon a private meeting.”

“Feferi,” Karkat interrupted, “I would like to submit a formal rebuttal to the proposal.”

“You will have your opportunity, Karkat.  I could have guessed as much from the beginning.  At the moment, however, this is Eridan’s presentation, and you will simply have to play the audience member.  Understood?”

Karkat pursed his lips and nodded, again returning to a seat at the table, however slightly farther away from Feferi.  For the rest of the presentation, which outlined the many benefits of this system, he stared at the paper with the Euphemism that referred so directly to him: Ambiguous.  Mutant.  The candy red color of his blood.

After the presentation, Feferi excused herself from the chamber.  Karkat rushed after her, but she requested some time to herself and he respected that (after setting up a time for his rebuttal to take place of course).  So instead, he immediately hounded after Eridan, who had darted out of the room towards his own chamber, book in hand.

“Hey!  Gillspittle.  Get the fuck back here,” he yelled when he found him in a hallway.  Eridan merely looked backwards towards him with a scowl and kept walking towards his door, forcing Karkat to run to catch up to him as Eridan slipped into his bed chamber.  The door remained unlocked and he walked in after him.

“You piece of Nook crust, what the fuck did you think that was?”

Erdian looked back at karkat casually, hanging up his coat.  “It was a presentation.  What did you expect?”

“It was an attack,” Karkat said, jabbing his finger into Eridans chest and feeling him seize up.  The feeling of control surged through his body.  “Admit it, fucker.  You put me on that scale on purpose. To undermine my position in the royalty.”

Eridan suddenly reared up, grabbing Karkat’s shirt in his fists and pushing him onto the bed roughly, so that Karkat fell sharply against the bedframe and seized up momentarily.  He reeled in pain while Eridan screamed quietly in his ear.

“No.  I put you on there to reaffirm your place in this hierarchy, you worthless little mutant.  You’re not royalty.  You’ve never been royalty, no matter how much royal teat you’ve managed to bite off with those greedy little teeth of yours.  The only reason you get to stay here is because you’re the Heiress’s pet, and you know it.”

Karkat’s head was still reeling, but he lifted it enough to scratch Eridans neck with his teeth.  It wasn’t his intention when he arrived to lay with him, but while they were already on his bed and his mind was swimming in caliginous hate, he lost control of himself.  He could use the stress relief.

Eridan shuttered at the mouth on his neck.  His hand ripped at the drawstring of Karkat’s pants to undo them, and slipped against his skin as he pulled them down to his ankles.  Karkat felt a cold hand rubbing down his bulge before  slipping two fingers inside his nook.  Seadwellers always ran cold.

“Get a bucket before you spoil my bedsheets, Off-caste,” Eridan muttered, and Karkat spit on his pillow audibly.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Character Titles:  
> Karkat - ?  
> Aradia - ?  
> Tavros - ?  
> Sollux - ?  
> Nepeta - ?  
> Kanaya - ?  
> Terezi - ?  
> Vriska - ?  
> Equis - ?  
> Gamzee - ?  
> Eridan - The Advvisor  
> Feferi - ?


	3. Something Like Friends

Karkat knocked on the door to the Heiresses chamber, glaring back at the guards who had hesitated to move aside when he approached.  When Feferi opened the door she smiled, wide and bubbly again, and pulled him into the room by the sleeve of his tunic.  When the door closed she pulled him into a hug, which functioned as an unofficial apology for Karkat.  Although they both knew there was nothing to apologize for.  Their jobs came first.

“You know his proposal’s a load of urine soaked lusus crap, right?”

“Vaguely,” she said, “I’m sure you’ll explain it to me.”  They moved over to the bed, Feferi sitting down at the edge.  “Will you take out my braids for me?”

Nodding, Karkat moved onto the bed and sat behind her, slowly unwinding the many thin, tight braids of her hair with practiced care.  “It’s just such obvious politicizing.  You can tell he doesn’t actually care about improving the system-- he just wants to establish some kind of hierarchy with myself below him.  He told me!”

“Karkat, you know better than to submit Black taunting as legitimate evidence.  What you say in bed doesn’t qualify.”

“Oh God,” Karkat recoiled.  “Please don’t talk about me and him being in bed.  It’s like hearing about my Lusus masturbating, just … wrong.”

“Fine.  Then should I ignore that you’re tunic has a tear on the side then?”  Karkat mimed gagging while Feferi laughed.  “Can we not talk about Eridan’s plan right now?  I am getting crowned in a few days.  That’s pretty important, right?” she said excitedly, like there was a calendar with hours marked down on the other wall.

“Sure,” he said.  He was certain she wouldn’t listen to him anyways.  There was more to Eridan’s insult that even she could have prevented.  “Are you nervous?”

“Fuck no,” she said, giggling.  She knew a multitude of curse words thanks to Karkat, but she used them sparingly, and usually for his benefit.  “I can’t wait.  This is going to be the best!”

Karkat undid another braid, and gently ran his fingers down the wiry curls to separate them.  They were ratty and knotted afterwards and would need something to wash them before they calm down.  All the seadwellers hair tended to be that way, he was reminded as his fingers brushed the gills at the side of her neck.  It was so much easier to groom himself.

“I mean,” she continued, “there’s still a whole lot to do, and I still need to come up with something to enact soon afterwards.  Eridan was right after all.  There are expectations I need to fulfil.  But I know I can do it.”

“Uh huh.”

Feferi turned around to look at him, as he continued to undo the rest of her braids.  “What’s wrong? You seem quieter now.  Aren’t you excited?”

“What?  Of course.”

“Then what are you thinking about?”

“Nothing,” he lied.  “Just brainstorming what your first decree should really be.”

She giggled again, turning around.  “Great.  Get to work Advisor.”

Karkat groaned.  “Ugh, do NOT give me the same title as him.  I will beg.”

“Well then what should I call you?”

Karkat shrugged.  “I don’t know.  Something similar, I guess.”

“Well, you don’t have the blood to be a Comedian,” Feferi said, contemplative.  Comedians were the next highest class; purple blooded informal advisors to match the formal Violet blooded ones, who communicated their opinions through hilarious comedy and biting satire.  Even if that was an option, he wouldn’t have agreed to it either.  There was no way he would agree to be beneath Eridan, and his attempts at comedy tended to be more vulgar than convincing.

“Isn’t there some title for Royal Moirail?” Karkat asked.

Feferi remained silent, instead gently purring as Karkat massaged the now loose hair near her scalp.  She always grew quiet when he mentioned their official relationship, and he knew it made her uncomfortable, although it made him feel bastardized if he didn’t mention it every once in a while.  

Feferi giggled and stood up to hug him.  She mumbled about the crowning day for a while longer, after they had laid back on the bed together and relaxed.  They talked about the various plans to be orchestrated over the coming days: Tomorrow the rest of the guests for the crowning would arrive, those invited by Feferi and the current Empress alike, and the next day was a ritual in which the different empresses of the ages would symbolically give her their wisdom through storytelling and spectacle.  It all seemed to rush past, which exhilarated Feferi and terrified her twin Karkat, Eridan’s words echoing in his ear.

“Feferi, what am I exactly?”

“We already agreed there’s no term for the Royal Moirail, KarCrab,” Feferi giggled.

“No, not that.  I mean…”

She rolled over to face him.  “What exactly?”

Karkat sat silent, choosing his words careful.   “Eridan and I were talking,” Feferi giggled again, “can you clam it for a second?  God dam.  Eridan and I were talking and he told me that I was just here because of your favors.  And I wanted to know… what you thought?”

Feferi considered herself for a moment and then continued in her normal tone.  She was too tired to be diplomatic.  “Yes.  He’s right, Karkat.  You’re here because of our history, which is itself a strange and miraculous event, which drastically changed both our lives.  But does that really mean that you have to go all emotional on me?  I mean, it’s clear you pull your own weight here.  And it’s not like you’re really a cull.  You’ve proven yourself worthy of being here.  Why does it matter  how you got here in the first place?”

“But do other people believe I’ve proven myself?” Karkat asked.

“Of course they do,” Feferi said.  “They’re not blind idiot.  You’re not an advisor because you give terrible advice.”

“You’re right.  I do give good advice,” he said, grabbing her nose gently between two of his knuckles and tweaking it, “you should listen to it more often.”

“When you stop butting into my personal business, I might!” she said through a clogged nose.  Karkat let go with a chuckle, and then looked over at the notched candle on her nightstand, almost burned down to the last ring, signaling a new day beginning and an old ending.

“It’s almost the next day.”

Feferi twisted over to see the nightstand and then looked back with her eyes wide and her mouth open.  “Yes!  Oh my glub, oh my glub.”

“Quick.  Say something waspy and immature before it’s too late!”

Feferi sat up straight in the bed.  “Ummm, ummm.  I am vastly misunderstood by adult figures in my life.  My life is so hard.  My life is so hard and no one understands.” With her last statement she flailed around on the bed in an exasperated faint, and then dissolved into giggling.

Karkat shook his head, smiling.  “Happy Wriggling Day Feferi.”

“It’s your day too Karkat,” she said, straightening herself again so she was looking him in the eyes. “Don’t forget that.  This party can be for you, too.  We can build banners and put up posters and we can make fruit punch in your blood color-“

“Yeah, because what I want is a whole room of people drinking something that looks like my blood.  That sounds really friendly.”

Feferi pouted.  “Well if it’s not your blood, it’s going to be mine…”

Karkat sat up, diligently swatting away her arm as she reached to bring him back.  “It’s nothing to be proud of anyways.”

“Of course it is.  Stop being a punk and accept it.”

Karkat looked back at his best friend, rolling her eyes once again at him, and smiled.

“You know what, I changed my mind,” he said, “call me your Advisor, so I can find some way to rub it in Eridan’s face.”

Feferi giggled.  “Happy Wriggling Day Karkat.”

“Happy Wriggling Day Feferi.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Character Titles:  
> Karkat - ?  
> Aradia - ?  
> Tavros - ?  
> Sollux - ?  
> Nepeta - ?  
> Kanaya - ?  
> Terezi - ?  
> Vriska - ?  
> Equis - ?  
> Gamzee - ?  
> Eridan - The Advvisor  
> Feferi - ?


	4. Well-Behaved

“Higher,” Feferi called.  The two trolls on the ladder lifted the banner up a few inches.  Feferi turned to her Advisor, standing bored at her side.  “What do you think Karcrab?”

Karkat looked at the banner, “Happy Wriggling Day Feferi and Karkat,” written in Fuchsia with a cherry red border.  On the original banner, the words “and Karkat” had been hastily crammed in the space beneath Feferi’s name until the Heiress had thrown a fit and demanded the entire thing be done again with a more aesthetically pleasing arrangement.

Posting the new banner was the last step in decorating for the party.  The ballroom had been completely transformed into a mess of fuchsia steamers, a dance floor of bubbles blown from a special solution that resisted popping, and treeball punch (colored to match Feferi’s blood at Karkat’s insistence).  The exhausted rust blooded culls Feferi had asked to help looked downward, eager to leave.  

“The left side is a little low, but the height in general is fine,” Karkat said.  

“You,” Feferi called, “a little higher and then you’re both dismissed.  Thank you.  And grab some snacks before you leave.”

She turned to Karkat, a slight disappointed snag to her lips.  “It’s so much easier to decorate underwater,” she explained, remembering her third wriggling party in the Undersea ballroom three floors below.  “You don’t mess with stupid ladders or anything when you can just swim up, and it feels just like flying Karcrab, pinning things to the walls or hanging them from the rafters, and everything’s so light you don’t need to bring anyone else.”

“It sounds great Fef.  The way you talk about it sounds like someone’s soper trip, but it also sounds great.”

Feferi grabbed Karkat’s arm.  “I should talk to the Mechanic about your suit.  You’ll come sea the undersea portion of the castle once he’s finished your device, won’t you?”

“As if I’m going to let you spend all that money on a tank of fucking air and not at least give you the pleasure of strapping it onto my back and pushing me into the deep end of a fucking underwater cavern,” he said.

“As always,” a voice called, “such a way with words Karkat.”

From the hallway emerged a tall female troll with the same colored gills as Feferi in a pink and black singlet, clicking her triton against the tile as she walked.

Feferi bowed, the transition from his moirail to a Royal perfectly seamless.  “Good day your Highness.”

Karkat followed Feferi’s lead.  “Good Day Empress.”

The empress smiled in return.  “Hello Feferi.  How has your wriggling day been so far?”

Good, Karkat thought, how has your retirement party been?

But the Empress Aorura was a stern leader, so he didn’t vocalize his jab.  He’d felt her lash enough as a wriggler to know better.

“It’s been wonderful Your Highness,” Feferi said, “and the party hasn’t even begun yet.  Thank you again for letting us use the ballroom.”

The empress batted her hand in the air as though she were gently swatting a bug.  “Oh, don’t even bother.  This is soon to be as much your castle as it is mine.  And soon you’ll have to come up with a new name for me, once you’re the Empress.”

“I’m sure I’ll be able to deign myself enough to call my predecessor her majesty even after tomorrow’s ceremony.”

The last sentence delighted the empress enough that she nearly bounced in place with joy.  She stuck out her hand.  

“Come Feferi, we must walk.  Karkat, entertain the guests while we’re off scheming for tomorrow.”

With a quick, wide glance backwards that disappeared in a moment, Feferi accepted her hand  and they took down the hallway, chatting about nothing as far as Karkat could hear.  Alone in the room he kicked over a pile of metal cups, which rang dents into his ears against the tile, folded up and stored away the ladder, and cleaned up his mess.

\--------------------

The ballroom filled with dignitaries; indigo and cerulean bloods in both blue formal wear and elegant armour, jesters in various shades of purple patchwork pajamas (stitched with mocking skill), and Eridan sticking out like a missing tooth in his Scholar’s robe amongst his immaculately dressed blood kin.  Karkat had to excuse himself every few minutes to avoid disgusting conversations with the grubby handed guests, none of whom he was distantly close to, half of which neither he nor Feferi had ever met, but insisted on asking him about his “situation.”

“And so,” a cerulean blood asked, “your blood is what shade exactly?”

Karkat dug his tongue into his teeth nearly hard enough to cut it open and give them a front row view of his blood color.

“Red, like a young horn but deeper and… redder.”

“Like a rust blood,” someone added, “but brighter.”

“Like the queen’s, but richer,” Karkat rebutted, and then immediately dismissed himself before they could react to his insolence.

He felt hot amongst so many people, each irritating him more and more until his questionable blood was boiling, and without an opening for the steam to escape.

“Karkat.” This voice was familiar, right down to the way it slurred his name, swallowing the ‘a’s like they were candy.

“Evening Vindicat.  Choke on a wine barrel yet?  Or do you still prefer the discount woolbeast bladder sac booze?”

Terezi grabbed Karkat’s arm to steady herself, digging into his elbow with her rings.  She was wearing her usual outfit, a judges suit, cinched at the waist with a teal cord.  “Enjoying your party?”

“As much as I enjoy teeth in my bulge.  And it’s Feferi’s party, not mine.”

Terezi shook her head.  “Nuh uh,” she slurred. “It’s on the banner.  Your party.”  The Vindicat was the highest authority of the courts, in charge of deciding all court motions; sentencing punishment for crimes, validating or denying appeals of sanity, and approving cull adoption.  Luckily she wasn’t the kind for day drinking, although they often found her passed out and blathering in the mornings.

“Where is your majesty at?” she asked.

“She’s off with Aorura,” he scanned the crowd. “I don’t know.  Maybe she came back.  Who knows.  I’d figure all the bloodsuckers would have made a bigger deal is she appeared though.  Tossed her in the fountain or something.”

Terezi nodded as though a legitimate concern all empress-to-be’s faced before their crowning days was hazing.  “They’re bringing in a new one, did you hear?  Purple.”

“A Jester?  What happened to Yakkow?”

“Yakoow’s fine.  Yakkow’s… fine.  It’s just that he’s tied to Aorura.  When her reign ends he steps down.”

“So who’s the new Jester?” he asked.  Terezi shook her head.

“Not a Jester.  A Comedian.  He’s around here somewhere.”  She tilted her head to check the tile to her left.

“Wait.  The Comedian?”

“Yeah,” she said.  Her eyes widened.  “You know him too?”

“They’re sending an APPRENTICE?  Is this some kind of insult to Feferi?  Because if they’re trying to make some statement by sending half-baked bulgebiter to look after Fef because we didn’t plant a flower garden in their asses so their shit smelled like roses, I swear I will spit in their pies and piss in a bucket of their fucking holy seltzer water, I swear-”

“He’s around here somewhere,” she mumbled.

“Boy,” another voice called, and in a perfect demonstration of his inner self-loathing, Karkat looked towards the Violet blooded scholar beckoning him over.  Eridan stood amongst them with an upturned scowl.

“Yes.  You.  Boy,” he repeated.  Karkat seriously considered making a statement and walking away.  “I know you’ve heard us now, so don’t be afraid.”

With a sigh through his teeth that sounded like steam exiting a pot, he obeyed.  “Excuse me Vindicat.  A cat’s going through the garbage.”

“What?”  Terezi asked, towards his back. “Oh, yes.  Deal with that will you?  Good.”

The scholars moved like an Amoeba, recoiling from Karkat’s approach at first and then swallowing and surrounding him.  The one who called him continued to address him, Eridan at his heels.  Karkat felt inspected by those behind him, and constantly turned over his shoulder to glare back.

“You’re with the Empress,” the Violet blood asked, “correct?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve heard a lot about you.”  He looked Karkat up and down, like he was deciding which cuts he wanted to ask the butcher for.  Was that a compliment or an insult?  Eridan certainly didn’t act like it was an insult, from his bitter jealous expression.  And yet there was a certain downward stare in the way he spoke that tickled beneath Karkat’s tunic with rage.

“Did you help her?  Setting up the party?”

“It’s my party too.”

“Of course, of course,” he reassured. “I could see the sign.  Happy Wriggling Day, as well.”  He offered a hand.  “My name is Neighn Ampora.”

Cautiously, Karkat took his hand.  He was cold, like he’d recently dried off from a swim.  “Karkat.”

Neighn nodded sympathetically.  “No last name?”

“… No.”

He smiled widely, his tongue peeking out through the edges of his teeth.  He turned Karkat’s hand over and looked at it.  “So clean,” he continued. “I must say, Karkat, you are one of the best behaved culls I have ever met.”

There it was: The trick.  Except when he looked at Eridan, his scowl had been replaced with horror instead of satisfaction.  And the rest of violet bastards were uniformly sympathetic and condescending at his confusion, and he realized this wasn’t it trick.  It was an assumption they had made.  A logical assumption.

He hadn’t noticed his jaw had been clenched until he tried to clench it manually and found it couldn’t be any tighter.  Instead, he gripped the hand he had shook until the handsome eyes glaring at him were orange and he could feel broken bone poking at his palm.  

Neighn gasped like a guppy in the jaws of a breaching shark, while the others descended, the amoeba collapsing to digest it’s prey.

“How’s that for well behaved,” Karkat screamed, his voice swallowed by the sudden panic.  And then he was in the air, Neighn’s grabbing him by the shoulder and lifting him to eye level.  He could feel warm blood through his tunic.

“Karkat!” His name rang once, then twice, and then drowned out all else.

The others suddenly pulled aside to reveal Feferi, analyzing every detail in quick succession: Her moirail standing in the center of a mob, a man bleeding violet on the tile, the rage shared with everyone near.

“Feferi, they thought I was your Cull,” Karkat explained, spitting out the last word almost as harshly as he said ‘they’.  He paddled with his feet, kicking at Neighn in the air.

Feferi stared daggers at Neighn.  “Put him down.”  Immediately he landed on his feet, staggering.  “Karkat, you need to leave,” she said.

“What?”  
“Go to the kitchen and fetch some towel to wrap his hand in, and,” she considered, “another to clean the floors.  We can’t let a puddle of blood stain the floor.”

“Why not?” Karkat asked. “He treasures it so much, why not display it for the world to see?  He probably thinks himself a painter.”

“Karkat.”

“I’m not cleaning up after him,” Karkat assured.

“Karkat.”   Finally, she snapped.  “Get out.”

“What?” Her voice was sharper than he’d expected, so loud and foreign that for a moment he thought Aorura was yelling at him again.  But from her place behind Feferi, the Empress stood quiet, glaring at the bleeding dignitaries like they were the mess of a child she hoped someone else would clean up.

“Get out.  Tell the kitchen staff what you’ve done and then if you’re so proud, you can tell your bed and the walls, but get out.  You can wash the rags later.”

“Feferi.  Don-”

“Don’t make orders Karkat.  It’s not your place.”

They stood there, the silent gaze of the crowd pressing their pride to the limit.  Finally, Feferi turned to a guard and without a word they began moving towards him.  For a brief moment, as she looked back to him, he could see the royalty fade away.

He didn’t wait for the guards to take him away.  He ran, tears hot as blood.

\--------------------

He ran through the hallways without thinking.  Left.  Left.  Right.  He heard footsteps down one hallway and retraced his steps to avoid them.  Left.  He burst past open doors before the people inside could see the red stains across his face until he came to a wall far away enough that he could curl up against it and quiet himself.  Except that too dissatisfied him, and so he burst outward, punching the floor and walls until his knuckles were ringing and he was out of breath to heave anymore.

His face had dried but he could still feel the tracks of dried tears on his face, dying them a faded cherry red.  He rubbed them off on the waist of his tunic until the fabric was hot enough to burn.

He could hear heavy footsteps from down the hallways, so he escaped the other way, only to run into something tall and solid and purple.

“Woah there Motherfucker.  Slow down before you chip off your shoulder.”

Karkat tried to turn around but he only ran into someone else; this one carved from bone white wood.  The paint of its teeth was chipped, although it hardly looked new otherwise, especially its vacant pale green eyes.  Although it didn’t stick well, someone had put Juggalo makeup on it, which only added it it’s horror.

A fucking puppet.

“Where are you going?” it asked in a barely concealed variation of the strangers voice.

“To find an axe,” Karkat snapped. “I need some sawdust.”

The stranger laughed at that, dropping the marionette to his side and guffawing proudly, wide mouthed and grinning.  It was a violent kind of laugh, but its friendliness kept Karkat standing where he was despite his puppet blockade’s departure.

“Hey,” he said, when he’d relaxed slightly, “You’re pretty fucking funny, you know that?”

“Sure Comedian.”  He tried to be as cordial as possible.  The troll was a nuisance, but he didn’t seem like a bad guy, despite his taste in puppetry.

“Hey,” he continued, “you don’t happen to know where the ballroom is, right?  I was supposed to be there an hour ago, but I got all turned around leftwise and now I can’t even remember where I motherfucking am.”

“Oh yeah, it’s...” He began explaining where the ballroom was only to realize he had taken so many turns he couldn’t remember where he was.  He’d need to find a landmark. He was used to the castle, so it shouldn’t be hard.  “Follow me and I’ll give you directions.”

“Fine by me Motherfucker.  So are those tracks on your shirt for show or did you fight someone interesting?”

Shit, Karkat thought, inspecting his tunic.  Sure enough, the giant violet stain across his shoulder was now matched by red stains from his face, along with some fresh violet blood across and smeared on his hands.  For safety sake, he hid his palms behind his back.

“Kinda.”

“We had a guy back where I’m from.  You know.  Dry land.  He had a blood color like that,” the comedian said, pointing towards the red stains. “Well, not like that exactly, but in the same motherfucking field as it.  The field being weird as all motherfuck.  Kind of greyish but with a hint of yellow.”

“Does this story have a point or do you just enjoy increasing the odds that you’ll bite off your own tongue?”

He started laughing again, not as violently as before but for longer, making Karkat wait until he had finished to continue the story.

“Nah, it’s just that he was weird about it for the longest time.  Kept it secret too, although the trolls he was culled to knew and shit.  Eventually though, any motherfucking way, he went back to his cave.  The cave he had been hatched in, on an errand or something.  And low and behold he gets told he was actually a deravtita-.  Derivate.  Derivative of a Purple blood.  The motherfucker had been culled to a Cerulean family for ages because he didn’t have a lusus, and low and behold the motherfuck could have been culling them from the beginning.  We didn’t care though.  We got the news and opened our motherfucking arms as wide as we could.  New Brother!”  He cried out the last sentence loud enough to shake the walls.  When he was done, Karkat was left with the sounds of the dragging Marionette and their own footsteps to think to.

“How the fuck did they know that?”

“Jade bloods man.  They know all there is to know about grubs and shit.  He had to go to his own cave though, because otherwise no one would know.  And there had to be the same Trolls working, Highdame and Nurses, or else they wouldn’t know.  If they keeled over then he’d be motherfucked.”

The stranger stopped suddenly, looking at the door they were in front of.  Branded into the wood was the word “Mechanic.”

“The ballroom is that way,” Karkat said. “Head back where I came from, turn right, and then head down the hallway until you reach a purple door.  From there you turn left and then head towards the sound of people.  If you get lost, find the kitchen and follow the food.  It only goes one way,” Karkat explained.

“Thank you my mother fuck,” and he was off in the opposite direction without a second thought.

Karkat stared up at the emblazoned door, thinking about fate and the story.  Feferi had told him not to give orders because of his place.  But what if that was different?

With a deep breath, he opened the door.  The lights were dim, except for the moments the Mechanic brought his hammer down on the glowing metal, causing a sharp flash to echo his thunder, or when his assistant opened the furnace door, unleashing a beast of growling hot light, both of which happened one after another as Karkat entered.

In the Mechanics prongs was a breastplate, half formed and half raw and glowing red orange with potential.  His assistant shut the furnace door and saw Karkat standing in the doorframe.

“Bossth.  We have a visthitor,” the assistant mumbled.

The mechanic looked up, set his stuff down, and grabbed the table, like he was about to receive bad news.

“What?”

“Equis,” Karkat said, “I have orders for you.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Character Titles:  
> Karkat - ?  
> Aradia - ?  
> Tavros - ?  
> Sollux - ?  
> Nepeta - ?  
> Kanaya - ?  
> Terezi - ?  
> Vriska - ?  
> Equis - The Mechanic  
> Gamzee - ?  
> Eridan - The Advvisor  
> Feferi - ?


	5. Royal Training

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha, what is an update schedule anyways haha
> 
> Sorry, life stuff school the rest. I don't think anyone reads this serially so it doesn't matter right now but I'l try and make it up by posting again soonish. Also Karkat and Feferi's titles come out next chapter so get ready for that!

Feferi looked around the Empresses nesting room.  She had been visiting it more and more recently, but she still struggled to memorize it every time she entered, still holding onto the mentality of a young grub barred from entering.  The walls were cut from living coral, and the furniture was a harmonic mix of many centuries of commissioned works by the Empresses of the past, with carvings telling their own histories running across them.  She was sitting in front of a Vanity, cluttered with jewelry and soft clothes, that was carved from deep sea pearl with tiny etching telling the story of the first empress’s rise from the ocean dwellers, her long life and knowledge, and the first crowning in which she was declared ruler of all Beforus.  There were fuchsia accents throughout the piece, glowing upon the pearl, but the last panel had three golden dots painted on her gills.

Aorura slid a brush through Feferi’s hair, gently undoing the knots as she went.  The braids she had just taken out made each strand disorderly, curling haphazardly in all directions like seaweed, but a little coralbeast slime and a brush slid as smooth as fabric in the wind.

“Your hair is so gentle.  Not like mine,” she mused.  In private spaces like this, her voice was like a church bell.

“Thank you,” Feferi said, but instead of seeing herself in the mirror she stared at those three golden dots in the pearl and stiffened.

Aorura grabbed a box from nearby.  Inside was a chest full of golden rings and large, thin hoops. Sitting at the very top was a single, silver needle: unbelievably thick in Feferi’s eyes.

A cold current rushed through, or Feferi shivered despite one as she watched the needle rise in the mirror.

“Close your eyes dear,” Aorura’s hand felt like a dive in ice water, bracing yet grounding, but she obeyed.  “It only hurts more if you look.  Don’t think.”

A moment of quiet and then a sharp pain that dulled and spread through the rest of her gill.  She felt something drip onto her neck--her own blood-- and began to cry.  Aorura slipped something else in the hole and then pressed a towel to her gill, hugging her.  She could feel something small and metallic pressing against the hole under the pressure of the towel.

“Shh, I know.  The rest won’t be as bad, I promise.”

They waited until Feferi had quieted and the pain was no worse than a pulse.  Then Aorura stood against and pierced the gill a second time slightly lower and quickly added another ring to keep the hole open.  The pain was the same as the first, but Feferi swallowed it silently, so the procedure would finish quicker.

The third piercing came quickly after that, and the fourth even sooner, until the left gill was glittering with bloodstained metal.  Then the towel, now wet, was pressed up against the gill and Aorura was at Feferi’s cheek again.  “There, there.  All done for now.”

“Thank you, your highness.”

“Oh Feferi,” she said, standing up.  There was a new towel at the counter, this one lightly soaked in herbs, a numbing agent taken from the sting of a softfish tentacle, and alcohol tincture.  When she pressed it against the gill, it burned and then eased it’s way into a tingle until all the pain and infection was gone.  “I told you to stop that.  Today, you become the empress, not me.  Call me Aorura.”

“I apologize.  Old habits die hard, I suppose.” She reached up and took the towel from Aorura, holding it up to her own gil and feeling the sensation in her fingers wane slightly.  From the mirror she saw Aorura look at the blood on her hand, so similar to her own shade, and then washed them in a basin nearby.

“I suppose they might.” She paused. “Your gills will heal quickly, so don’t worry about bleeding during your crowning.  Not like I did.  It’s a good thing we did this now.  My ancestor waited until the last minute.  We had hardly any time to paint my face afterwards, and during the ceremony...”  She traced a path down her own piercings.  “I could feel it the entire time.”

“Can’t entirely be a bad thing.  Adds a little color,” Feferi joked, feeling her sense of humor return.

Aorura chuckled.  “True.  We’ll have to replace those, by the way, before you go.  They’re covered.”

She crouched down, so her face was level with Feferi’s, and held her again.  “We’re lucky, you know.”

She didn’t know, but Feferi kept quiet expecting her to continue.  

“Most Trolls,” Aorura explained, “don’t get to know their descendants.  Their torchbearers.  Even the violets, the ones who nearly live as long as we do -- who may live to see them born -- they don’t know which is necessarily theirs, destined to follow their footsteps, and they die far before they can see it themselves.”  She combed Feferi’s braids with her finger.  “Perfect.”

“Blood stains and all.”

Aorura laughed again.  “Yes.  Blood stains and all.”

From her own neck she unlatched the final piece, a necklace of gold circlets.  Wearing them  made Feferi’s neck seem stretched, like an eels.

“Are you ready, Feferi?”

She nodded, gently ringing with her new piercings as she did.

“Just stand tall and listen to the organizer.  Breathe slowly, but don’t focus on it or you’ll miss what they tell you to do.  Focus on the ceremony, or me.  I’ll signal what to do if anything goes wrong.”

“Thank you Aorura.”

“We have to take care of each other Feferi.  I after you and you after me and us both after whoever comes next in our line.  No one else looks after us,” she sighed, “the balancing act at the top is a precarious one.”

Feferi thought back to the disorder Karkat had caused during the party and bit her tongue.  There was still much to process about that day, including words she wished she could replace. “I understand,” she said tentatively.

“Good, now let’s clean off your gills.  I think the bleedings stopped.”

Another towel was taken out and dipped in water.  The other two, stained pink, lay like rags in a basket.  Between the numbing agent which had put Feferi’s hand to sleep and her body’s natural healing, there wasn’t anymore pain.  When all the blood was washed away, from her cheek and her hair and delicately around the gills so as not to cut anymore, Aorura carefully changed the piercings and replaced them with new ones and a single golden hoop at the bottom, as Feferi massaged feeling back into her hands.

“You look so beautiful,” Aorura said.

“With all due respect Ma’am,” Feferi pressed her hands into her lap, squirming her toes in her shoes and smiling despite everything, “There are more important things than looking beautiful today.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Character Titles:  
> Karkat - ?  
> Aradia - ?  
> Tavros - ?  
> Sollux - ?  
> Nepeta - ?  
> Kanaya - ?  
> Terezi - ?  
> Vriska - ?  
> Equis - The Mechanic  
> Gamzee - ?  
> Eridan - The Advvisor  
> Feferi - ?


	6. The Journey Begins

Karkat returned to the workshop the next afternoon.  He hadn’t even considered talking to Feferi; he had been involved with planning her Crowing enough to know that they would never have a chance at privacy while the festivities were going on.  She was going to be passed around from troll to troll all day.

Instead he left a note in her bedroom, explained where he was going and why, and that she shouldn’t worry about him because he’d be back in less than half a perigree.

He pinned the note to one of her pillows, and with a last sigh, left.

The Mechanic, with the exception of the kitchen staff, was the only person at his post, smashing away at more metal pieces and shaping them into a curve.

“Eqiuis.” Bang.  Down came the hammer. “Eqiuis!” Karkat yelled.  Bang.  Down came the hammer.

“He’sth not going to ansther to histh name,” Sollux whispered.

“Sollux, I can still hear you,” Eqiuis replied.

“Has he finished it?” Karkat asked. Sollux nodded, and gestured again towards his master.  His abnormal eyes, one red and one blue, were clouded like milk in a bowl of water.

Karkat swallowed something stiff that tasted like pride.

“Mechanic,” he paused, waiting for the bang that never came as the hammer slowed mid fall and rested at his side.  Eqiuis stood up straighter.  “Have you finished it?”

Eqiuis stood back, the hammer at his side, looking more threatening by the minute.  “Hear me.  I do not appreciate your summons.  If the lady has a desire to commission me, so be it, but have her send a respectable messenger, with some sort of letter in her hand.  I do not ask the empress to visit herself, that wouldn’t be respectable, but I feel I am owed that formality at least.”

The mechanic outweighed Karkat several times over, but Karkat balled his fists in threat regardless.  “I am an Advisor to the Empress Incumbent.  Must I explain everything again.”

Eqiuis raised an eyebrow.  “No.  But hear it for the future.” He began walking across the room, towards a table covered in tarp. “I still find the idea strange though.  An advisor becoming a knight.”

He fist tightened.  “I can be both.”

“Regardless.  The armour is here.”  He pulled the tarp off, revealing a blocky set of armour pieces: a breast plate, gauntlet, greave and cuisse, all painted in wide areas in a coat of Candy Red.

“I didn’t have time to make a helmet.  Thinning the metal for the moving pieces takes too long.”

“What the fuck is that?” Karkat yelled.

“What the “the fuck” is what?” Eqiuis asked.

“You hemotyped it!”

“Ah,” Eqiuis said, “Yes.  Unfortunately I couldn’t paint a symbol within in it, considering your kind doesn’t have any symbols assigned to them.  And it took quite a while to find the proper paint as well.  I had to take the base we use for the Cerulean armour and mix it with ru-”

“If I wanted to wear my fucking blood, I’d save you the trouble of making armor in the first place and slit my own throat, asshole.  You had the time to mix finger paint, but you couldn’t shape me a crummy bowl to wear for my head?”

Eqiuis stood aghast.  “Hemotyping is part of a long history of classification-”

“Whatever,” he said, giving up.  He grabbed the tarp Eqiuis had thrown on the ground and wraped all the pieces in it to throw them over his back.  He headed into the hallway before Eqiuis could get angrier and ask more questions.

“Wait.”  Sollux came bounding out through the doorway after him. For the brief moment the door was open, Karkat could hear Eqiuis yelling even louder.  Both of Sollux’s hands were behind his back as he ran, holding something.

“What exactly did you sthink wasth going to happen?” he accused. “That Eqiuisth would give you a sthet of Cerulean armour or thomething?”

Karkat stared at the ground, his sack of metal feeling twice as heavy now.

Sollux brought his hands from behind his back and held out a bowl with a brush, wide metal sanding file, and a dark vial of liquid inside.  It was only after he looked closer that Karkat realized the bowl was an unfinished, and therefore unpainted helmet.  The mouth guard was missing, and the one design--it’s curled rim--was rough and didn’t circle all the way around, but it looked his size.

“Here,” he said.  He shoved it into Karkat’s hands and ran back inside, cutting off the ranting of Eqiuis with the shut of the door.

\--------------------

Feferi shivered gently, the single gown given to her by Aorura doing nothing to contain the excitement running like the cool cascades of water through her body.  From outside she could hear clapping, and hurriedly she pressed her face into the rack of clothes Aorura has dressed her from and yelled, tasting a mouthful of swimming fabric.

Finally, there was a knock at the door and Feferi was summoned down the hallway towards the back entrance of the Grand Hall.

Since her party, every available hand had been at work taking down her decorations and doing up everything else.  Statues of each empress -- sculpted to depict them at the ages of their coronations-- lined the walls: Chelan - the Mother of the Caste, Ilayda - the Imperious Naiades, Aorura - The Regal Amphibian, and finally Feferi, now to be known forever by her chosen title, the Imperial Aquarian.  Her statue depicted her ten times larger than life, with her triton cast into the sky like a golden bolt of lightning; all carved from marble, and accented with Fuchsia paint.

The front of the room glittered, a mass of statues upon a platform facing a crowd of dignitaries and servants alike, some sitting in upholstered seats and others standing in the crowded back.

As she entered, instruments carved from conch shells and sea spiderbeast back competed with the roar of the crowd, and Aorura and the various historian storytellers waited for her on the stage.

As she walked, she scanned the front row for a familiar face, and then the second, and then sweeped over the third before again inspecting the first.  Where was Karkat?

Most likely he had arrived late and gotten stuck in the back row, she assured herself.  But self consciously she touched the new rings in her gill, glittering with painful extravagance.

Was she still smiling?  Her face had grown so used to beaming that day that the slight release felt like miles of falling.

\--------------------

Karkat stood out on the dock outside the castle, pulling his coat tighter around his body.  He ducked into a boat before casting it off into the dark, pulsing seas.  When the dock was out of sight, he pulled the pack from his back and laid each piece of armor  in the boat.  From within his cloak, he pulled the vial of liquid paint thinner, placed a single drop of it upon the brush, and rubbed it over his breastplate, scrubbing and sanding until one corner was bare, the finish ruined but his anonymity restored.

His hands were sore and bruised and would blister from the harsh chemical infecting his cuts, but he continued onward, washing off the residual chemical with salt water and laying it to dry before moving onto the next piece, trusting his vessel to float towards the shore.   Piece by piece, he Unmarked himself.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Character Titles:  
> Karkat - The Unmarked  
> Aradia - ?  
> Tavros - ?  
> Sollux - ?  
> Nepeta - ?  
> Kanaya - ?  
> Terezi - ?  
> Vriska - ?  
> Equis - The Mechanic  
> Gamzee - ?  
> Eridan - The Advvisor  
> Feferi - The Imperial Aquarian

**Author's Note:**

> Fic updates every two weeks until I'm finished with the first draft/editing.  
> Also, thank you to [UNofFangirls](http://archiveofourown.org/users/UNofFangirls/pseuds/UNofFangirls) for Beta reading and catching all my apostrophe errors.
> 
> Character Titles will be added as they are revealed.


End file.
